Data from: Relationships between rhizosphere microbial communities, soil abiotic properties and root trait variation within a pine species

Rhizosphere microbes play important roles in plant performance and
ecosystem functioning. It is becoming increasingly clear that rhizosphere
communities vary with soil properties and variation in root traits among
plant species. However, less is known about whether and how variation in
root traits within plant species influences the rhizosphere microbial
communities. We evaluated the intraspecific root traits variation and
explored their associations with bacterial and fungal communities in
rhizosphere by focusing on an ectomycorrhizal tree species, i.e., Pinus
massoniana, in 22 sites in subtropical China. The first dimension of the
principal component analysis on root traits revealed evidence for the
‘conservation’ gradient of the root economics space. Overall, root traits
explained more variation in fungal communities than in bacterial
communities in the rhizosphere. Functional composition of rhizosphere
microbial communities changed significantly along the ‘conservation’
gradient, with fast-growing copiotrophic bacteria and symbiotic
ectomycorrhizal fungi were significantly enriched on the ‘acquisition’
side, while slow-growing oligotrophic bacteria were significantly enriched
on the ‘conservation’ side of the gradient. Synthesis: Our study
demonstrates that intraspecific variation in plant roots significantly
influence rhizosphere microbial communities, which in turn can influence
plant nutrition and therefore plant performance within the community.